One can read the results of the 2014 mid-term elections in the United States in terms of whatever dominant political inkblot they favor. The narrative of the American right-wing, of course, is that the resounding Republican victories at both the Congressional and gubernatorial levels constituted a resounding repudiation by the voters of the Obama administration’s policies and pari passu the much vaunted progressivist politics that seemed to have finally taken solid root in American political soil with the 2008 election.

Let me begin with a confession. When I cast my ballot for the midterm election last week in North Carolina, I didn’t vote for Kay Hagan. That doesn’t mean that I voted for her Republican challenger Thom Tillis, who ended up winning her Senate seat by a slight margin.